Weltreiche und Wahrheitszeugen

Text in German. Jan Carsten Schnurr systematically examines the historical thinking of the Protestant revival movement of the German Vormarz for the first time. The fact that the Awakened possessed a pronounced historical awareness is proven by their extensive and often large-circulation historical literature, which is opened up and interpreted here. The works, some of which were written by well-known leaders of the revival movement, are analyzed according to the genres of world and national history, church and missionary history, biography and apology of biblical history. Schnurr shows that this historiography had points of contact with other historical trends, but differed in structure and self-image from Enlightenment history, historicism, idealism and romanticism and also developed specifics with regard to their semantics and metaphors. A second main part is devoted to an analysis of the content of the image of history conveyed. By means of a detailed analysis by C.G. Barth's "General World History According to Biblical Principles" from 1837 as well as thematic cross-sections based on a wide range of sources, Schnurr works out historical argumentation figures and patterns of interpretation. How did world history and salvation history relate to one another in the thinking of the awakened, and how did one try to interpret the history of religion and civilization in the light of the "kingdom of God"? Where did history convey national or transnational identities and political ideals, where did it show role models and detours? How did one evaluate the experiences of revolution and acceleration since 1789?